The Stacks
All book reviews
613 honest reviews across fiction, non-fiction, mystery, sci-fi, romance, and more.
Showing 145-168 of 613
Blood Ties
by Warren Adler
Blood Ties by Warren Adler 1979 review. An assimilated American Jewish lawyer travels to Bavaria for a family wedding and uncovers a Nazi-era secret that pulls his identity apart.
Mourning Glory
by Warren Adler
Mourning Glory by Warren Adler 1996 review. A broke single mother in Palm Beach starts trolling funerals for wealthy grieving widowers. Then she actually falls for one.
The Casanova Embrace
by Warren Adler
The Casanova Embrace by Warren Adler 1978 review. A Chilean dissident in Washington beds a string of women for political intelligence. An FBI handler tries to piece it together after his death.
The Hotel Riviera
by Elizabeth Adler
The Hotel Riviera by Elizabeth Adler 2003 review. Lola Laforet runs a small hotel on the Cote d’Azur. Her husband has disappeared. So has a fortune in jewels.
The Last Time I Saw Paris
by Elizabeth Adler
The Last Time I Saw Paris by Elizabeth Adler 2001 review. A widow inherits a Paris apartment, a chateau, and a daughter she did not know about in this gentle expat romance.
The Sand Castle
by Rita Mae Brown
The Sand Castle by Rita Mae Brown 2008 review. A multigenerational Maryland family rents a beach cottage on Chincoteague for one last summer day before the matriarch dies.
Venus Envy
by Rita Mae Brown
Venus Envy by Rita Mae Brown 1993 review. A Virginia gallery owner mistakenly told she has weeks to live writes the truth to every important person in her life. Then she does not die.
The Jester
by Andrew Gross
The Jester by Andrew Gross and James Patterson 2003 review. A medieval-set thriller about a Crusader innkeeper turned court jester who infiltrates a French duke’s castle to find his wife.
One Mile Under
by Andrew Gross
One Mile Under by Andrew Gross 2015 review. The third Ty Hauck thriller sends the ex-Greenwich detective to a Colorado fracking town to investigate a kayaker’s drowning.
The Blue Zone
by Andrew Gross
The Blue Zone by Andrew Gross 2007 review. A federal Witness Protection thriller about Kate Raab, whose father disappears from the program, leaving her family in the crosshairs.
Malice at the Palace
by Rhys Bowen
Malice at the Palace by Rhys Bowen 2015 review. The ninth Royal Spyness mystery sends Lady Georgiana Rannoch to Kensington Palace to chaperone Princess Marina before her royal wedding.
15 Seconds
by Andrew Gross
15 Seconds by Andrew Gross 2012 review. A standalone thriller about a Florida cosmetic surgeon framed for a cop killing and forced to run as the noose tightens.
Double Shot
by Raymond Benson
Doubleshot by Raymond Benson 2000 review. The first Union-trilogy Bond novel, with a Bond imposter, recovery from a brain injury, and a hit on a peace conference in Gibraltar.
Never Dream of Dying
by Raymond Benson
Never Dream of Dying by Raymond Benson 2001 review. Bond chases a French crime syndicate called the Union from Cannes to Tangier in the strongest of Benson’s mid-period Bond novels.
The Man With the Red Tattoo
by Raymond Benson
The Man with the Red Tattoo by Raymond Benson 2002 review. The final original James Bond continuation novel, set in Japan, with Tokyo Yakuza, a bioterror plot, and a return to Fleming-Japan territory.
The World is Not Enough
by Raymond Benson
The World is Not Enough by Raymond Benson 1999 review. The official novelization of the nineteenth James Bond film, with the oil-pipeline plot expanded and a few sharper Bond beats.
Dead Heat
by Dick Francis
Dead Heat by Dick Francis 2007 review. Chef Max Moreton survives a gala poisoning at the Newmarket races and has to figure out who is killing his guests and why.
Silks
by Dick Francis
Silks by Dick Francis 2008 review. Geoffrey Mason is a barrister who rides as an amateur jockey on weekends, until his only racetrack friend turns up dead.
To Sail Beyond the Sunset
by Robert A. Heinlein
To Sail Beyond the Sunset by Robert A. Heinlein 1987 review. The final Heinlein novel, narrated by Maureen Johnson Long, mother of Lazarus Long, across a hundred and fifty years of Howard Families history.
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
by Robert A. Heinlein
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein 1985 review. A late-Heinlein World-As-Myth novel in which the writer Richard Ames is recruited into a multiverse-spanning conspiracy on Luna.
Alma Mater
by Rita Mae Brown
Alma Mater by Rita Mae Brown 2001 review. A coming-of-age novel set at a small Virginia women’s college about a senior who falls in love with her best friend during her last spring semester.
Rubyfruit Jungle
by Rita Mae Brown
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown 1973 review. The landmark coming-of-age novel about Molly Bolt, a smart, queer Florida kid who refuses every social script she is handed.
Two of the Deadliest: New Tales of Lust, Greed, and Murder from Outstanding Women of Mystery
by Elizabeth George
Two of the Deadliest, edited by Elizabeth George review. A 2009 Sisters in Crime anthology of original lust-and-greed stories from 23 women crime writers including Patricia Smiley, Marcia Muller, and Carolyn Wheat.
A Moment on the Edge : 100 Years of Crime Stories by Women
by Elizabeth George
A Moment on the Edge: 100 Years of Crime Stories by Women, edited by Elizabeth George review. A 26-story anthology that traces a century of women crime writers from Anna Katharine Green to Susan Glaspell to Sara Paretsky.